Oklahoma Teacher Loses
Job Over Tolerance Assignment

A high school teacher in rural Oklahoma resigned last week after a controversy erupted in response to an assignment intended to teach tolerance.

In January, Debra Taylor showed her students at Grandfield High School the 2002 film The Laramie Project, based on the play about the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard. The students were to then select scenes and film their own versions for a class project, but the school's principal stopped production after a few weeks.

When Taylor led students in a reflective ceremony about the canceled project, district superintendent Ed Turlington canceled the entire class. Taylor complained to a school board member, which prompted Turlington to recommend she be fired. The school board approved her resignation on Friday.

An attorney for the school district denied that Taylor was let go because of the assignment's gay-friendly content, but others in the community contend that the nature of the material played a role.

"They don't want something like this addressed in our community," Matt Ebner, one of Taylor's former students, told USA Today.